


Ever The Right to Spring

by zarabithia



Category: Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tales) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Coming of Age, Gen, Prostitution, Revisionist Fairy Tale, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The forest sees all seasons of Little Red Riding Hood's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever The Right to Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cherith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherith/gifts).



**A man has every season while a woman only has the right to spring.~Jane Fonda**

 

My time as a forest is measured in seasons, and so too are the lives of the pretties who come to my realm.

Some visitors flutter in without thought or much consideration of either my floors or the wise old trunks that adorn my walls, as clueless as the first rose buds that blossom during the early days of spring.

Little Red is not the first; others have come as sisters dancing hand in hand in an array of white and red and as a foolish brother and sister trying to escape an evil stepmother.

But Little Red is the latest to wander boldly into my clutches. Her cloak matches my autumn leaves, but the joyfulness of her songs and the loudness of her tune matches the season of her years. She wanders off and then back onto the path she is traveling, heedless of the need for direction or sensibility. Souvenirs from her presence, sometimes cookie crumbs, sometimes full fruit, drop in her wake, as she swings her basket.

The treats are gobbled up by the other dwellings of my domain, thankful that this foolish creature has made at least this day in the forest an easier one to survive.

Little Red herself is not gobbled alive that day, though there are plenty of creatures of my acquaintance who would love to tear her flesh from her bones. The shadows of my realm are constantly moving, playing hide and seek and other games of fancy with the sunlight, and one leaps out to frighten Little Red into running back onto the path home.

Her terrified shouts echo through my winds for days, and would likely echo longer if she knew how hungrily the wolf pack sniffed her trail minutes later.

~~

Summer is an entirely different season than spring, and many of those who show up to breathe the sweet and gentle fragrance of my flowers in the former season cannot bear the swarms of tiny winged creatures demanding blood payment in the latter season. Nor can they handle the current winner of the shadow games, as the sun beats so fiercely through my roof tops that the leaves themselves wilt during the middle of the day.

Some can handle the season, of course. I have watched a drawf dance jubilantly with the knowledge that he has secured a prince's gold, and heard the triumphant shouts of a demon securing a future Queen's first born during summer. Both acts steeped in evil so dark that the even my shadows run away from the perpetrators.

But Little Red, whose childhood fear never installed the sense of foreboding that it should have when it came to my realm, makes her way back to me in the summer of her life. Her red hood is tossed back carelessly, exposing her reckless curls to the world. My winds relish them, caressing them with such insistence that Little Red proclaims a desire to shear them away as a boy would, to her companion.

Her companion does not like me and the feeling is all too mutual. He is long, lanky, and pale, like a daffodil, yet not as pleasant. His presence causes Little Red's joyful shouts to turn to muted and mundane conversations.

She wastes her time proclaiming the beauty of my realm, on a man who sneezes when a buttercup is placed in front of his nose. I trust no one whose response to a buttercup is to sneeze.

Still, Little Red trusts him mightily, for it is for him that she first disrobes. Her body is in spring no longer, but has not quite reached full bloom, yet that does not keep either of them from enjoying each other's embrace. They steadfastly ignore the swarms of onlookers that sink their tiny fangs into the couple's flesh. Both are ignorant of the bite marks and welts that form on their bodies, as they lay on Little Red's cloak.

Little Red's blood stains my floor that day, and she leaves both her offering and the cloak of her childhood behind as she and her companion leave my realm that day.

~~

Autumn is a time of dying, but at no other point do my leaves shine as brightly. Many dwellers of my realm spend the season hastily making up for time they wasted during the previous seasons, in a frantic search for nuts and berries to keep them through the winter. But it is also in autumn that the shadows take the greatest delight in playing with the sun, for they know that soon the sun will be too busy to to play and they shall be stuck with the moon, who never shines quite brightly enough to please them.

During this season I have watched a fair skinned daughter of a queen first seek my refuge, pursued by a lovestruck and weak huntsmen.

It is also during autumn that Little Red makes her way back to me. I have not seen her in some years, and her shape and scent have changed considerably. She smells of dead leaves, from many different trees, and she holds a familiar red cloak in her hands as though she is weary of it but cannot yet discard it. Her face is worn and tired, far more than is appropriate for someone of her age.

But still she sings out to me, and still she feeds the other inhabitants with the crumbs from her noonday meal. She may be tired, but her shoulders do not slump and her head remains raised proudly.

I see no reason she should not remain proud. Like the dwellers of my trees and the furred creatures hunting at my river, Little Red is providing for herself. I am not surprised it is a path others disapprove of, because the girl has never been any good at remaining on the path established by others.

When she leaves that day, she hums quietly to herself, and only places the cloak back on when she arrives to the very edge of my realm, where the harsh light of the neighboring town comes into view.

~~

Winter, in contrast to autumn, is a time of death. Many of those who dwell in my realm choose to hide away from the bitterness of the season, sleeping away the most unforgiving time of the year. Those who do not have no leaves or warm floor to hide in when the shadows strike out from the frustration of not having the sun's full attention. Many of them curl up on the cold, white ground and never get back up.

Little Red, who has visited me during every other season, comes back to me in winter. Her shoulders slump and her head bows as she sits on a stump long since rotted through from the cold and the wet of the season. Wetness falls from her eyes as she pulls the cloak tightly against her body to keep out the cold my winds throw at her.

I wait patiently, knowing that Little Red has never been very good at keeping secrets.

My patience is rewarded when she removes the dagger from her basket and runs it lightly over her skin, not quite harshly enough to draw blood. Yet.

Her tears turn to angry shouts as she wails her pain to me with the same fierceness that she has always shouted her pleasures. She tells of a proud huntsmen who has lain in her bed and known the pleasures of her flesh. She tells of his possessiveness and how he wishes to make her belong only to him. She tells of his desire to make her his wife.

In my realm, mates choose each other. The female calls to the male, and he comes to her. If he comes at time when she does not beckon, most of my female dwellers will rip the male into pieces, as though he is a predator (or sometimes prey.)

It does not work that way in Little Red's realm, and though she mourns being just a girl in a world that does not treasure her, I wait for her patiently to remember that she has never been very good at being "just a girl."

When the choice is made, my winds mourn her with howls that make the hungriest of the wolves envious. The shadows take time away from being angry at the sun's fickleness to caress her form and hide it from hungry mouths for as long as possible.

Later, Little Red's would-be mate comes to look for her. He is surrounded by those that call him a hero and marvel at his ability to love a mere whore with such pure devotion. He hunts devotedly for her, but having entered at the wrong end of my realm, he does not find Little Red. Other surprises await him and his party.

His error soothes both the wolf pack's howls and my own.

~~

Spring is a time of rebirth, of watching the death that has defined my realm for so long slowly give way to new life.

I watch proudly as the new litter of wolf pups is born, healthy and happy, due in part to their mother's hearty winter feast.


End file.
